The API Briefing: Test Your JSON Reading Skills with the Peace Corps Countries and Regions API

Dec 3, 2014
Pop Quiz

The Peace Corps just released a new dataset that lists all of the countries and regions Peace Corps volunteers serve. The API is RESTful and uses the JSON format. You have read in earlier columns about the different data formats for APIs and how to read the data presented by an API.

As a refresher, I’ve created the following quiz based on the excellent documentation for the Peace Corps Countries and Regions API. All the answers can be found at https://github.com/PeaceCorps/Countries-Regions-REST-API.

Question 1

How many API elements does the Country API have?

  1. 5
  2. 10
  3. 24
  4. 40

Question 2

For the API request example—http://www.peacecorps.gov/api/v1/geography/countries/belize—is there any information on medical considerations? (Hint: The example is in the documentation)

  1. Yes
  2. No

Question 3

Which API element will return a list of volunteer projects?

  1. list
  2. projects
  3. projects_list
  4. volunteer_projects

The Peace Corps encourages developers and designers to use the API to create innovative apps to help others understand and support its mission. One potential app is to help Peace Corps applicants determine which volunteer projects they may want to work on. Another app is a video player for all of the Peace Corps videos in the dataset. Just exploring the JSON code can give a developer many app ideas.

Answers

  1. 24
  2. No
  3. projects_list_*API – Application Programming Interface. How software programs and databases share data and functions with each other. Check out_ APIs in Government for more information. Each week in “The API Briefing,” I will showcase government APIs and the latest API news and trends. Visit this blog every week to learn how government APIs are transforming government and improving government services for the American people. If you have ideas for a topic or have questions about APIs, please contact me via email. Dr. William A. Brantley is the HRIS Branch Chief in the USDA’s Rural Development Human Resources Office. You can find out more about his work in this space at BillBrantley.com. All opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of the USDA and GSA.

USPTO

Dec 3, 2014